Whale Fall - Five

A Closer Listen

It took exactly one minute and five seconds for me to like this album: right at the 65-second mark, J. Matt Greenburg’s Morricone trumpet enters and lifts the music to a remarkable early height. This is the first of many big moments on the album; almost every track has at least one. Whale Fall‘s power has always been in their incorporation of a wide instrumental palette, and on V ~ which refers to the fact that this is their fifth album, as well as their existence as a quartet – they take things to the next level, at times even expanding to a septet.  “Chronophobia” extends the Western vibe, evoking the vast deserts within driving distance of the band’s native L.A., perhaps expressing a desire to escape the city, the sterile buildings, the Hollywood vibe.  If so, the explosion of heavy metal sound at 3:13 certainly fits the bill.  In this segment, they demonstrate their fluidity of genre, pumping up the aggression like a horde of 19th century bandits descending on an unsuspecting Old West town.

This cinematic influence virtually begs for visual accompaniment, although literature will do as well.  Since the release of their last album, two novels bearing their name have been published: Daniel Kraus’ Whalefall, which seems suited to their sound, and Elizabeth O’Connor’s Whale Fall, which does not.  In the first, a man finds himself trapped inside a whale, and has only an hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.  The high drama of “Tokamak” seems perfectly suited to such a dilemma, the title referring to a device which uses a powerful magnetic field and may eventually lead to its deployment in a fusion reactor.  V exists in a constant state of flux – building, exploding and building again, like untamed energy in an insufficient container, a tide one cannot control.

This is not to say that the band lacks a tender side.  One can hear it in the breakdown of “Fjord Lightning,” in which the aggressive dog momentarily rolls over on its back and invites one to rub its belly.  The gentle glockenspiel moment will eventually give way to a huge brass response, the dog returning to its feet, wagging its tail instead of barking.  One of Whale Fall’s charms is its pun play, apparent here and on “Apocalypse Wow!”, revealing a sense of humor to balance their wild sonic abandon.  At 2:05, one can hear a rattlesnake, but at 4:47, Aaron Farinelli drums his way into the apocalypse, producing the Wow.  We might add that the album itself is released in fall – in fact, on Halloween – pressed on “flame orange” vinyl, making it a Whale Fall fall, or a Whale Autumn.

While the last album included an eighteen-minute track, the longest here is eight; “Apophenia” is borne on waves on cello, building to a massive center.  The guitars surge; the trumpet reclaims its crown.  And then an unusual conclusion: a piano breakdown that leads to a wall of drone.  Whale Fall does not and will not follow a template, and this is their purest strength: there is power in the unexpected, and while there is no predicting where the set is headed, when it reaches the finale, it all makes sense.  Every compositional choice seems intuitive, and the LP creates its own glorious story, eager to be retold.  (Richard Allen)